root device is non-lvm partition, disallowed on LVM disk

[PW HP-UX Support Team]

A bit of history to know what were doing:

We have an offsite datacentre full of identical rx7640 systems. None of them are currently networked together yet( the network is still being built) so ignite is not an option.

We have another couple of identical servers here at my site. What we want to do is this:

1) Build a standard OS with all our support tools, scripts, oracle bimaries, etc.. on it
2) Mirror the root drive
3) Break the mirror
4) remove the mirrored drive and us it to boot another system
5) Sync the mirrors on the new system.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Step 1 to 3 are no issue. We've correctly (we believe) mirrored the root drive, including the EFI partition stuff, and broken the mirror.

After inserting the newly populated drive into a virgin system, the first problem we encounter is that the EFI will not boot the drive off the presented path. However, from the EFI shell, I can go into the fs0: partition and execute the EFI/HPUX/HPUX.efi file and the kernel starts to load. It halts after scanning for devices, the presents the following error:

--------
System Halted During LVM config
non-lvm root on lvm disk
------
...
root device is non-lvm partition on lvm disk.

I'm new to the Itanium world, so my quesitons are plenty:

1) Is what we're trying even possible?
2) If so, what are we doing wrong?

Please excuse my inexperience with this platform.

[Torsten.]

2 possible problems:

step 2) Mirror the root drive

correct procedure? Is the mirrored drive bootable?

step 3) break the mirror

how you did this?
"break" means probably "delete" ???


I would use DRD (dynamic root disk) for this ...

[Torsten.]

Regarding your other problem:

"first problem we encounter is that the EFI will not boot the drive off the presented path"

The boot path is stored directly in the servers memory - it has no clue about the boot path.

Once you have booted the system, use "setboot" to manage autoboot setting and primary, haa and alternate bootpath.


====================

"System Halted During LVM config
non-lvm root on lvm disk"


Did you use "lvreduce" by chance?

[PW HP-UX Support Team]

BTW, we're running 11.23.

2) Here's a quick rundown of all the commands we run to create the mirror

idisk -q -wf /tmp/partitionfile /dev/rdsk/c3t6d0
insf -eC disk > /dev/null
efi_fsinit -d /dev/rdsk/c3t6d0s1
mkboot -e -l /dev/rdsk/c3t6d0
echo "boot vmunix -lq" > /tmp/AUTO.lq
efi_cp -d /dev/rdsk/c3t6d0s1 /tmp/AUTO.lq /EFI/HPUX/AUTO
efi_cp -d /dev/rdsk/c3t6d0s1 -u /EFI/HPUX/AUTO /tmp/AUTO.alt
pvcreate -B /dev/rdsk/c3t6d0s2
vgextend /dev/vg00 /dev/dsk/c3t6d0s2
echo "1 /dev/dsk/c3t6d0s2" >> /stand/bootconf

setboot -p 1/0/0/3/0.6.0
setboot -a 1/0/1/1/0/4/1.6.0
setboot -h 1/0/1/1/0/4/1.6.0

lvextend -m 1 /dev/vg00/lvol1 /dev/dsk/c3t6d0/s2
etc...


3) to break the mirror, we simply lvreduce -m 0 all the lvols, the vgreduce the disk from vg00 and pull it out.

[Torsten.]

"lvreduce -m 0" will mark the data on this disk as "deleted" - it will remove the LVM structure from the disk. This is the reason for the behaviour you see.

[PW HP-UX Support Team]

In #3, I just answered my own question. lvreduce. Duh!

So, what would you recommend to break the mirror (clean). ALl else fails, I could just pull the drive out live.

[melvyn burnard]

I agree with Torsten.
I would rather try using DRD for this
Check if you have DRD (Duynamic Root Disk) installed, if not download an dinstall it for free from:
http://h20392.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=DynRootDisk

It is simple and easy to use, you simply type in:
drd clone

It will create the partitions, EFI bits, and everything else.

[melvyn burnard]

Of course, whichever method you use, you will have to change the hostname, ip addresses etc.
Use set_parms to do that once you have booted the server from the cloned disk

[Torsten.]

Shutdown the server, this will close the disk and filesystems. Transfer this disk to the new server. Start the server and boot into single user mode.

hpux> boot vmunix -lq -is

Activate the VG, mount the filesystems in vg00 and run "set_parms initial" to set the values.
Mirror this drive just like you replaced the "missing" disk.

Boot the source server (-lq) and "replace" the "missing" drive.

Replacement procedures are here:

http://docs.hp.com/en/5991-1236/When_Good_Disks_Go_Bad.pdf

[Torsten.]

But this may be easier:

http://h20392.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=DynRootDisk

[Torsten.]

BTW, from your profile:

I have assigned points to 0 of 10 responses to my questions.

Please read this too:

http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/helptips.do?#33

Have fun!

[PW HP-UX Support Team]

DRD looks like it is exactly what I need! I've got it in my 11.23 depots, so I'm slapping it on now.

Thanks everyone for your replies.

[PW HP-UX Support Team]

Clsing.

[Torsten.]

I suggested DRD even in my first post, but based on the points you did assign it looks like you don't want to believe it ...